The Secrets of a Courtesan

The Secrets of a Courtesan

Back of the Book

All's fair in love and matrimony in Nicola Cornick's wildly romantic new series that introduces the ladies of Fortune's Folly--spirited heiresses who are more than a match for society's most dashing rogues!

The epitome of privilege and power, the handsome Duke of Welburn sets all the ladies' hearts aflutter as he strides into the village of Fortune's Folly.

For Eve Nightingale this fluttering is a mixture of wariness and wonder. Once his glittering society mistress--caught up in his glamorous world by day and tangled in his bedsheets by night--she is now no more than a penniless yet proud shopkeeper.

It's a world Eve can't go back to--she has secrets to keep. But this determined duke seems very keen on unravelling them....

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Nicola Cornick's Bio

For the first 18 years of her life Nicola lived in Yorkshire, within a stones throw of the moors that had inspired the Brontë sisters to write Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. One of her grandfathers was a poet, and her family contained teachers and avid readers who filled the house with books. With such a background it was impossible for Nicola not to become a bookworm.

Nicola went to school in a historic building that had originally been the dower house of a stately home. It was the sort of school that taught girls how to find a rich husband and how to get in and out of a Rolls-Royce gracefully.

Unfortunately Nicola did not pay enough attention to the bit about the rich husband and has therefore never had the chance to practice the bit with the Rolls- Royce. She was too busy reading. It was also at school that Nicola developed her love of history, English literature, and French, due to some truly inspirational teachers.

Meanwhile, Nicola spent her evenings reading piles of romances and historical novels and watching costume dramas with her grandmother. Her grandparents were very influential to her and also taught her canasta, ballroom dancing, and how to grow rhubarb, all of which she is determined to incorporate in a historical romance one day.

At 18 Nicola went south to study history at London University and during her holidays did a variety of jobs, from sticking price tags on shoes in a factory to serving refreshments on a steam railway. When she left college she had to settle for something far less interesting in order to earn a living and worked as an administrator in a number of different universities. She moved to Somerset and lived for seven years in a cottage haunted by the ghost of a cavalier.

Nicola met her future husband while she was at university, although it took her four years to realize that he was special and more than just a friend. Her husband, being so much more perceptive, had worked this out much sooner but eventually an understanding was reached.

This lack of perception also meant that Nicola did not realize for years that she was meant to be a writer. She wrote bits and pieces of novels in her spare time but never finished any of them. Eventually, she sent in the first three chapters of a Regency romance to Mills and Boon and, although they were rejected, she found she had become so addicted to writing that she could not stop. Happily, her third attempt was accepted and she has never looked back.

Nicola loves to hear from her readers and can be contacted by email or via her web site.